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A CONTINUATION 



REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 



OCCASIONED BY THE PUBLICATION OF 



SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON. 



From the Christian Examiner, Vol. V, No. II. 



.^ 



UroM\ 



CONTINUATION 



REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 



OCCASIONED BY THE PTTBLICATION OF 



SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON. 



FROM THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, 

VOIi V. NO. II. 



X 




BOSTON: 

BOWLES AND DEARBORN, 72 WASHINGTON STREET. 



1828. 



d'^'^ II- ■; 



/#^ 



(^I'TiC'Jmx, 



EXAMINER FREES. 
Hiram Tupper, Printer, Bromfield Lane. 



NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 



In a former number of our work,* we reviewed the life and 
character of Napoleon Bonaparte. We resume the subject, not 
for the purpose of speaking more largely of the individual, but 
that we may consider more distinctly the principle of action 
which governed him, and of which he was a remarkable mani- 
festation. 

The passion for power was Bonaparte's ruling principle. 
Power was his idol. He worshipped no other. To gain suprem- 
acy and unlimited sway, to subject men to his will, was his 
chief, setded, unrelenting purpose. This passion drew and 
converted into itself the whole energy of his nature. The love 
of powder, that common principle, explains, in a great degree, his 
character and life. His crimes did not spring from any passion or 
impulse peculiar to himself. With all his contempt of the human 
race, he still belonged to it. It is true both of the brightest virtues 
and the blackest vices, though they seem to set apart their pos- 
sessors from the rest of mankind, that the seeds of them are 
sown in every human breast. The man, who attracts and awes 
us by his intellectual and moral grandeur, is only an example 
and anticipation of the improvements, for which every mind was 
endowed with reason and conscience ; and the worst man has 
become such by the perversion and excess of desires and ap- 
petites which he shares with his whole race. Napoleon had no 
element of character which others do not possess. It was his 
misery and guilt that he was usurped and absorbed by one pas- 
*Vol.IV.No. V. p. 382. 



4 JVapoleon Bonaparie. 

sion ; that his whole mind shot up into one growth ; that his sin- 
gular strength of thought and will, which, if consecrated to vir- 
tue, would have enrolled him among the benefactors of man- 
kind, was enslaved by one lust. He is not to be gazed on as 
a prodigy. He was a manifestation of our own nature. He 
teaches on a large scale what thousands teach on a narrow one. 
He shows us the greatness of the ruin, which is wrought when 
the order of the mind is subverted, conscience dethroned, and 
a strong passion left without restraint to turn every inward and 
outward resource to the accomplishment of a selfish purpose. 

The influence of the love of power on human affairs is so 
constant, unbounded, and tremendous, that we think this princi- 
ple of our nature worthy of distinct consideration, and shall de- 
vote to it a few pages, as a fit sequel to our notice of Bonaparte. 

The passion for power is one of the most universal, nor is it 
to be regarded as a crime in all its forms. Sweeping censures 
on a natural sentiment cast blame on the Creator. This prin- 
ciple shows itself in the very dawn of our existence. The child 
never exults and rejoices more, than when it becomes conscious 
of power by overcoming difficulties, or compassing new ends. 
All our desires and appetites lend aid and energy to this passion, 
for all find increase of gratification, in proportion to our in- 
crease of power. We ought to add, that this principle is fed 
from nobler sources. Power is a chief element of all the com- 
manding qualities of our nature. It enters into all the higher 
virtues ; such as magnanimity, fortitude, constancy. It enters 
into intellectual eminence. It is power of thought and utterance 
which immortalizes the products of genius. Is it strange that 
an attribute, through which all our passions reach their objects, 
and which characterises whatever is great or admirable in man, 
should awaken intense desire, and be sought as one of the chief 
goods of life ? 

The love of power, we have said, is not in all its forms a 
crime. There are indeed various kinds of power, which it is 
our duty to covet, accumulate, and hold fast. First, there is 
inward power, the most precious of all possessions ; power over 
ourselves ; power to withstand trial, to bear suffering, to front 
danger ; power over pleasure and pain ; power to follow our 
convictions, however resisted by menace or scorn j the power of 
calm reliance in seasons of darkness and storms. Again, there 



JVapoleon Bonaparte. 5 

is a power over outward things ; the power by which the mind 
triumphs over matter, presses into its service the subtlest and 
strongest elements, makes the winds, fire, and steam its minis- 
ters, rears the city, opens a path through the ocean, and makes 
the wilderness blossom as the rose. These forms of power, 
especially the first, are glorious distinctions of our race, nor 
can we prize them too highly. 

There is another power, which is our principal concernin the 
present discussion. We mean power over our fellow creatures.' 
It is this which ambition chiefly covets, and which has instigat- 
ed to more crime, and spread more misery than any other 
cause. We are not however to condemn even this universally. 
There is a truly noble sway of man over man ; one, which it is 
our honor to seek and exert ; which is earned by well doing; 
which is a chief recompense of virtue. We refer to the quick- 
ening influence of" a good and great mind over other minds, by 
which it brings them into sympathy with itself. Far from con- 
demning this, we are anxious to hold it forth as the purest glory 
which vnrtuous ambition can propose. The power of awakening, 
enlightening, elevating our fellow creatures, may, with peculiar fit- 
ness, be called divine ; for there is no agency of God so benefi- 
cent and sublime, as that which he exerts on rational natures, and 
by which he assimilates them to himself. This quickening pow- 
er over other minds is the surest test of greatness. We admire 
indeed the energy, which subdues the material creation, or de- 
velopes the physical resources of a state. But it is a nobler might 
which calls forth the intellectual and moral resources of a people, 
which communicates new impulses to society, throws into circu- 
lation new and stirring thoughts, gives the mind a new conscious- 
ness of its faculties, and rouses and fortifies the will to an un- 
conquerable purpose of well doing. This spiritual power is 
worth all other. To improve man's outward condition is a se- 
condary agency, and is chiefly important as it gives the means of 
inward growth. The most glorious minister of God on earth, is 
he who speaks with a fife giving energy to other minds, breathing 
into them the love of truth and virtue, strengthening them to 
suffer in a good cause, and lifting them above the senses and the 
world. 

We know not a more exhilarating thought, than that this power 
is given to tnen ; that we can not only change the face of the 
outward world, and by virtuous discipline improve ourselves, but 



6 Napoleon Bonaparte. 

that we may become springs oflife and light to our fellow be- 
ings. We are thus admitted to a fellowship with Jesus Christ, 
whose highest end was, that he might act with a new and 
celestial energy on the human mind. We rejoice to think, that 
he did not come to monopolize this divine sway, to enjoy a soli- 
tary grandeur, but to receive others, even all who should obey 
his religion, into the partnership of this honor and happiness. 
Every Christian, in proportion to his progress, acquires a meas- 
ure of this divine agency. In the humblest conditions, a power 
goes forth from a devout and disinterested spirit, calling forth si- 
lently moral and religious sentiment, perhaps in a child, or some 
other friend, and teaching, without the aid of words, the loveli- 
ness and peace of sincere and single hearted virtue. In the 
more enlightened classes, individuals now and then rise up, who, 
through a singular force and elevation of soul, obtain a sway 
over men's minds to which no limit can be prescribed. They 
speak with a voice which is heard by distant nations, and which , 
goes down to future ages. Their navies are repeated with vene- 
ration by millions, and millions read in their lives and writings 
a quickening testimony to the greatness of the mind, to its moral 
strength, to the reality of disinterested virtue. These are the 
true sovereign's of the earth. They share in the royalty of 
Jesus Christ. They have a greatness which will be more and 
more felt. The time is coming, its signs are visible, when this 
long mistaken attribute of greatness, will be seen to belong emi- 
nently, if not exclusively, to those, who, by their characters, 
deeds, sufferings, writings, leave imperishable and ennobling 
traces of themselves on the human mind. Among these legiti- 
mate sovereigns of the world, will be ranked the philosopher, 
who penetrates the secrets of the universe, and opens new 
fields to the intellect ; who spreads enlarged and liberal habits of 
thought, and who helps men to understand, that an ever growing 
knowledge is the patrimony destined for them by the ' Father 
of their Spirits.' Among them will be ranked the statesman, 
who, escaping a vulgar policy, rises to the discovery of the 
true interest of a state ; who understands that a nation's mind 
is more valuable than its soil ; who inspirits a people's en- 
terprise, without making them the slaves of wealth ; who looks 
for his glory to posterity, and is mainly anxious to originate or 
give stability to institutions by which society may be carried for- 
ward. Among these will be ranked, perhaps on the highest 



-4, 



JVapoleon Bonaparte. 7 

throne, the moral and religious Reformer, who truly merits that 
name ; who rises above the spirit of his times ; who is moved 
by a holy impulse to assail vicious establishments, sustained 
by fierce passions and inveterate prejudices ; who rescues great 
truths from the corruptions of ages ; who, joining calm and 
deep thought to profound feeling, secures to religion at once en- 
lightened and earnest conviction ; who unfolds to rnen higher 
forms of virtue than they have yet attained or conceived ; who 
gives brighter and more thrilUng views of the perfection for 
which they were framed, and inspires a victorious faith in the 
perpetual progress of our nature. 

There is one characteristic of this power which belongs to 
truly great minds, particularly deserving notice. Far from en- 
slaving, it makes more and more free, those on whom it is ex- 
ercised ; and in this respect it differs wholly from the vulgar sway 
which ambition thirsts for. It awakens a kindred power in oth- 
ers, calls their faculties into new Hfe, and particularly strength- 
ens them to follow their own deliberate convictions of truth and 
duty. It breathes conscious energy, selfrespect, moral inde- 
pendence, and a scorn of every foreign yoke. 

There in another power over men, very different from this; a 
power, not to quicken and elevate, but to crush and subdue ; a 
power which robs men of the free use of their nature, takes 
them out of their own hands, and compels them to bend to an- 
other's will. This is the sway which men grasp at most eager- 
ly, and which it is our great purpose to expose. To reign, to 
give laws, to clothe their own , wills with omnipotence, to anni- 
hilate all other wills, to spoil the individual of that selfdirectioa 
which is his most precious right ; this has ever been deemed by 
multitudes the highest prize for competition and conflict. The 
most envied men are those, who have succeeded in prostrat- 
ing multitudes, in subjecting whole communities, to their single 
will. It is the love of this power, in all its forms, which we are 
anxious to hold up to reprobation. If any crime should be 
placed by society beyond pardon, it is this. 

This power has been exerted most conspicuously and per- 
niciously by two classes of men ; the priest or minister of religion, 
and the civil ruler. Both rely on the same instruments ; that is, 
i pain or terror ; the first calHng to his aid the fires and tor- 
/ ments of the future world, and practising on the natural dread 
V of invisible powers, and the latter availing himself of chains, 



1 



8 Napoleon Bonapartt. 

4 dungeons, and gibbets in the present life. Through these terrible 

: applications, man has in all ages and in almost every country 

' been made, in a greater or less degree, a slave and machine ; 

been shackled in all his facuhies, and degraded into a tool of 

others' wills and passions. The influence of almost every political 

/ and religious institution has been to make man abject in mind, 

I fearful, servile, a mechanical repeater of opinions which he 

,/ dares not try, and a contributor of his toil, sweat, and blood to 

. governments which never dreamed of the general weal as their 

only legitimate end. On the immense majority of men, thus 

wronged and enslaved, the consciousness of their own nature 

has not yet dawned ; and the doctrine, that each has a mind, worth 

more than the material world, and framed to grow forever by 

a selfForming, selfdirecting energy, is still a secret, a mystery, 

notwithstanding the clear annunciation of it, ages ago, by Jesus 

Christ. We know not a stronger proof of the intenseness and 

nefariousness of the love of power, than the fact of its having 

virtually abrogated Christianity, and even turned into an engine 

of dominion, a revelation which breathes throughout the spirit 

of freedom, proclaims the essential equality of the human race, 

and directs its most solemn denunciations against the passion 

for rule and empire. 

That this power, which consists in force and compulsion, in 
the imposition on the many of the will and judgment of one or 
a few, is of a low order, when compared with the quickening 
influence over others, of which we have before spoken, we need 
not stop to prove. But the remark is less obvious, though not 
less true, that it is not only inferior in kind, but in amount or 
degree. This may not be so easily acknowledged. He, whose 
will is passively obeyed by a nation, or whose creed imphcitly 
adopted by a spreading sect, may not easily believe, that his 
power is exceeded, not only in kind or quality, but in extent, by 
him who wields only the silent, subtle influence of moral and in- 
tellectual gifts. But the superiority of moral to arbhrary sway 
in this particular, is proved by its efiects.; Moral power is crea- 
\ live ; arbitrary power wastes away the spirit and force of those 
/ on whom it is exerted. And is it not a mightier work to cre- 
I ate than to destroy ? A higher energy is required to quicken 
than to crush ; to elevate than to depress ; to warm and ex- 
pand than to chill and contract. Any hand, even the weakest, 
may take away life. Another agency is required to kindle or 



JVapoleon Bonaparie. 17 

toiy to trace. She was bowing before kings and warriors. 
She had volunaes for the plots and quarrels of Leicester and 
Essex in the reign of Elizabeth, but not a page for Shakspeare ; 
and if Bacon had not filled an office, she would hardly have re- 
corded his name, in her anxiety to preserve the deeds and say- 
ings of that Solomon of his age, James the First. 

We have spoken of the supreme importance which is attach- 
ed to rulers and government, as a prejudice ; and we think, that 
something may be done towards abating the passion for power, 
by placing this thought in a clearer light. It seems to us not very 
difficult to show, that to govern men is not as high a sphere of ac- 
tion as has been commonly supposed, and that those who have ob- 
tained this dignity, have usurped a place beyond their due in his- 
tory and men's minds. We apprehend, indeed, that we are not 
alone in this opinion ; that a change of sentiment on this subject 
has commenced and must go on ; that men are learning that 
there are higher sources of happiness and more important agents 
in human affairs than political rule. It is one mark of the pro- 
gress of society, that it brings down the public man and raises 
the private one. It throws power into the hands of untided in- 
dividuals, and spreads it through all orders of the community., 
It multipHes and distributes freely means of extensive influence, 
and opens new channels, by which the gifted mind, in whatev- 
er rank or condition, may communicate itself far and wide. 
Through the diffusion of education and printing, a private man 
may now speak to multitudes, incomparably more numerous, than 
ancient or modern eloquence ever electrified in the popular assem- 
bly or the hall of legislation. By these instruments, truth is as- 
serting her sovereignty over nations, without the help of rank, of- 
fice, or sword ; and her faithful ministers will become more and 
more the lawgivers of the world. 

We mean not to deny, we steadily affirm, that government is 
a great good, and essential to human happiness ; but it does its. 
good chiefly by a negative influence, by repressing injustice 
and crime, by securing property from invasion, and thus remov- 
ing obstructions to the free exercise of human powers. It con- 
fers little positive benefit. Lts office is, not to confer happiness, 
but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for them- 
selves. Government resembles the wall which surrounds our 
lands; a needful protection, but rearing no harvests, ripening no 
fruits. It is the individual who must choose whether the enclo- 
3 



18 J^apoleon Bonaparte, 

sure shall be a paradise or a waste. How little positive good can 
government confer ? It does not till our fields, build our houses, 
weave the ties which bind us to our families, give disinterested- 
ness to the heart, or energy to the intellect and will. All our 
great interests are left to ourselves ; and governments, when they 
have interferred with them, have obstructed, much more than 
advanced them. For example, they have taken religion into 
their keeping only to disfigure it. So education, in their hands, 
has generally become a propagator of servile maxims, and an 
upholder of antiquated errors. In like manner they have para- 
lysed trade by their nursing care, and multiplied poverty by ex- 
pedients for its relief. Government has almost always been a 
barrier against which intellect has had to struggle ; and society 
has made its chief progress by the minds of private individuals, 
who have outstripped their rulers, and gradually shamed them 
into truth and wisdom. 

Virtue and intelligence are the great interests of a community, 
including all others, and worth all others ; and the noblest agency 
is that by which they are advanced. Now we apprehend, that 
political power is not the most effectual instrument for their pro- 
motion, and accordingly we doubt whether government is the 
only or highest sphere for superior minds. Virtue, from its very 
nature, cannot be a product of what may be called the direct 
operation of government, that is, of legislation. Laws may re- 
press crime. Their office is to erect prisons for violence and 
fraud. But moral and religious worth, dignity of character, 
loftiness of sentiment, all that makes man a blessing to him- 
self and society, lies beyond their province. Virtue is of the 
soul, where laws cannot penetrate. Excellence is something too 
refined, spiritual, celestial, to be produced by the coarse ma- 
chinery of government. Human legislation addresses itself to self- 
love, and works by outward force. Its chief instrument is pun- 
ishment. It cannot touch the springs of virtuous feelings, of 
great and good deeds. Accordingly, rulers, with all their ima- 
gined omnipotence, do not dream of enjoining by statute, philan- 
thropy, gratitude, devout sentiment, magnanimity, and purity of 
thouglit. Virtue is too high a concern for government. It is an 
inspiration of God^not a creature of law'; and the agents whom 
God chiefly honors in" its promotion, are those, who, through ex- 
perience as well as"meditation, have risen to generous concep- 
tions of it, and who show it forth, not in empty eulogies, but in 
the language of deep conviction, and in lives of purity. 



Jsfapoleon Bonaparte. 19 

Government then does little to advance the chief interest of 
human nature by its direct agency ; and what shall we say of its 
indirect ? Here we wish not to offend ; but we must be allowed 
to use that plainness of speech which becomes Christians and 
freemen. We do fear then, that the indirect influence of gov- 
ernment is on the whole adverse to virtue ; and in saying this, we 
do not speak of other countries, or of different political institutions 
from our own. We do not mean to say, what ail around us would 
echo, that monarchy corrupts a state, that the air of a court reeks 
with infection, and taints the higher classes with a licentiousness 
which descends to their inferiors. We speak of government at 
home ; and we ask wise men to say, whether it ministers most 
to vice or virtue. We fear, that here, as elsewhere, political 
power is of corrupting tendency ; and that, generally speaking, 
public men are not the most effectual teachers of truth, disinter-, 
estedness, and incorruptible integrhy to the people. An error 
prevails in relation to political concerns, which necessarily makes 
civil institutions demoralizing. It is deeply rooted, the growth 
of ages. We refer to the belief, that public men are absolved in 
a measure from the everlasting and immutable obligations of mo- 
rality ; that political power is a prize, which justifies arts and 
compliances tbat would be scorned in private life ; that man- 
agement, intrigue, hollow pretensions, and appeals to base pas- 
sions, deserve slight rebuke when employed to compass political 
ends. Accordingly the laws of truth, justice, and philanthropy, 
have seldom been applied to public as to private concerns. Even 
those individuals, who have come to frown indignantly on the 
machinations, the office seeking, and the sacrifices to popularity, 
which disgrace our internal condition, are disposed to acquiesce 
in a crooked or ungenerous policy towards foreign nations, by 
which great advantages may accrue to their own country. Now 
the great truth on which the cause of virtue rests, is, that recti- 
tude is an eternal, unalterable, and universal law, binding at once 
heaven and earth, the perfection of God's character, and the 
harmony and happiness of the rational creation ; and in propor- 
tion as pohtical institutions unsettle this great conviction — in pro- 
portion as they teach that truth, justice, and philanthropy are 
local, partial obligations, claiming homage from the weak, but 
shrinking before the powerful — in proportion at they thus insult 
the awful and inviolable majesty of the Eternal Law — in the same 
proportion they undermine the very foundation of a people's 
virtue. 



20 Napoleon Bonaparte. 

In regard to the other great interest of the community, its in- 
telligence, government may do much good hy a direct influ- 
ence ; that is, by instituting schools or appropriating revenue for 
the instruction of the poorer classes. Whether it wonld do vi^ise- 
ly in assuming to itself, or in taking from individuals, the provision 
and care of higher literary institutions, is a question not easily 
determined. But no one will doubt, that it is a noble function, 
to assist and develope the intellect in those 'classes of the com- 
munity, whose hard condition exposes them to a merely animal 
existence. Still the agency of government in regard to know- 
ledge is necessarily super6cial and narrow. The great sources 
of intellectual power and progress to a people, are its strong and 
original thinkers, be they found where they may. Government 
cannot, and does not, extend the bounds of knowledge ; cannot 
make experiments in the laboratory, explore the laws of animal 
or vegetable nature, or establish the principles of criticism, mor- 
als, and rehgion. The energy which is to carry forward the in- 
tellect of a people, belongs chiefly to private individuals, who 
devote themselves to lonely thought, who worship truth, who 
originate the views demanded by their age, who help us to throw 
off the yoke of established prejudices, who improve on old modes 
of education or invent better. It is true that great men at the 
head of affairs, may, and often do, contribute much to the growth 
of a nation's mind. But it too often happens that their station 
obstructs rather than aids their usefulness. Their connexion 
with a party, and the habit of viewing subjects in reference 
to personal aggrandizement, too often obscure the noblest intel- 
lects, and convert into patronsof narrow views and temporary in- 
terests, those, who, in other conditions, would have been the lights 

of their age, and the propagators of everlasting truth. From 

these views of the limited influence of government on the most 
precious interests of society, we learn that political power is not 
the noblest power, and that, in the progress of intelligence, it will 
cease to be coveted as the chief and most honorable distinction 
on earth. 

If we pass now to the consideration of that interest, over which 
government is expected chiefly to watch, and on which it is most 
competent to act whh power, we shall not arrive at a result 
very different from what we have just expressed. We refer to 
property, or weahh. That the influence of political institutions 
on this great concern is important, inestimable, we mean not to 



JVapoleon Bonaparte. 21 

deny. But as we have already suggested, it is chiefly negative. 
Government enriches a people by removing obstructions lo 
their powers, by defending them from wrong, and thus giving 
them opportunity to enrich themselves. Government is not the 
spring of the wealth of nations, but their own sagacity, industry, 
enterprise, and force of character. To leave a people to them- 
selves, is generally the best service their rulers can render. 
Time was, when sovereigns fixed prices and wages, regulated in- 
dustry and expense, and imagined that a nation would starve and 
perish, if it were not guided and guarded like an infant. But 
we have learned, that men are their own best guardians, that 
property is safest under its owner's care, and that generally speak- 
ing, even great enterprises can better be accomplished by the 
voluntary association of individuals, than by the state. In- 
deed, we are met at every stage of this discussion by the truth, 
that poHtical power is a weak engine compared with individual 
intelligence, virtue, and effort ; and we are the more anxious to 
enforce this truth, because, through an extravagant estimate of 
government, men are apt to expect from it what they must do 
for themselves, and to throw upon it the blame which belongs to 
their own feebleness and improvidence. The great hope of so- 
ciety, is individual character. Civilisation and political institu- 
tions are themselves sources of not a few evils, which nothing 
but the intellectual and moral energy of the private citizen can 
avert or relieve. Such, for example, are the monstrous inequal- 
ities of property, the sad contrasts of condition, which disfigure a 
large city ; which laws create and cannot remove ; which can on- 
ly be mitigated and diminished by a principle of moral restraint 
in the poorer classes, and by a wise beneficence in the rich. 
The great lesson for men to learn, is, that their happiness is in 
their own hands; that it is to be wrought out by their own faith- 
fulness to God and conscience ; that no outward institutions can 
supply the place of inward principle, of moral energy, whilst this 
can go far to supply the place of almost every outward aid. 

Our remarks will show that our estimate of political institu- 
tions, is more moderate than the prevalent one, and that we re- 
gard the power, for which ambition has woven so many plots 
and shed so much blood, as destined to occupy a more and more 
narrow space^ among the means of usefulness and distinction. 
There is, however, one branch of government, which we hold in 
high veneration, which we account an unspeakable blessing, and 



22 JVapoleon Bonaparte. 

which, for the world, we would not say a word to disparage ; 
and we are the more disposed to speak of it, because its relative 
importance seems to us little understood. We refer to the Ju- 
diciary, a department worth all others in the state. Whilst pol- 
iticians expend their zeal on transient interests, which perhaps 
derive their chief importance from their connexion with a party, 
it is the province of the Judge to apply those solemn and universal 
laws of recthude, on which the security, industry, and prosperity 
of the individual and the state essentially depend. From his tri- 
bunal, as from a sacred oracle, go forth the responses of justice. 
To us there is nothing in the whole fabric of civil institutions so 
interesting and imposing, as this authoritative exposition of the 
everlasting principles of moral legislation. The administration 
of justice in this country, where the Judge, without a guard, 
without a soldier, without pomp, decides upon the dearest inter- 
ests of the citizen, trusting chiefly to the moral sentiment of 
the community for the execution of his decrees, is the most 
beautiful and encouraging aspect, under which our govern- 
ment can be viewed. We repeat it, there is nothing in pubHc 
affairs so venerable as the voice of Justice, speaking through her 
delegated ministers, reaching and subduing the high as well as 
the low, setting a defence around the splendid mansion of wealth 
and the lowly hut of poverty, repressing wrong, vindicating inno- 
cence, humbling the oppressor, and publishing the rights of hu- 
man nature to every human being. We confess, that we often 
turn with pain and humiliation from the hall of Congress where 
we see the legislator forgetting the majesty of his function, for- 
getting his relation to a vast and growing community, and sacri- 
ficing to his party or to himself the public weal ; audit comforts 
us to turn to the court of justice, where the dispenser of the laws, 
shutting his ear against all solicitations of friendship or interest, 
dissolving for a time every private tie, forgetting public opinion, 
and withstanding public feeling, asks only what is right. To 
our courts, the resorts and refuge of weakness and innocence, we 
look with hope and joy. We boast, with a virtuous pride, that no 
breath of corruption has as yet tainted their pure air. To this 
department of government, we cannot ascribe too much impor- 
/ tance. Over this, we cannot watch too jealously. Every en- 
( croachraent on its independence we should resent, and repel, as 
j the chief wrong our country can sustain. Wo, wo to the impi- 
\ ous hand, which would shake this most sacred and precious col- 
umn of the social edifice. 



Napoleon Bonaparte. 23 

In the remarks which we have now submitted to our readers, 
we have treated of great topics, if not worthily, yet, we trust, 
with a pure purpose. We have aimed to expose the passion for 
dominion, the desire of ruhng mankind. We have labored to 
^ how the superiority of moral power and influence to that ajsia^as^ 
which has for ages been seized with eager and bloody hands. 
We have labored to hold up to unmeasured reprobation, him 
who would establish an empire of brute force over rational be- 
ings. We have labored to hold forth, as the enemy of his race, 
the man who, in any way, would fetter the human mind, and sub- 
ject other wills to his own. In a word, we have desired to awaken 
others and ourselves, to a just selfreverence, to the free use and 
expansion of our highest powers, and especially to that moral 
force, that energy of holy, virtuous purpose, without which we 
are slaves amidst the freest institutions. Better gifts than these 
we cannot supplicate from God j nor can we consecrate our lives 
to nobler acquisitions. 



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